@art_dailydose: In Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, a local subculture has found a surreal way to confront the mountains of foreign trash the city is drowning in. Alongside tons of garbage imported from richer nations, the landfills overflow with waste left behind by industries extracting the Congo’s gold, coltan, cobalt, and diamonds. When French photographer @stephangladieu visited these “apocalyptic” sites, he discovered a remarkable art collective called Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle (@ndaku_ya_la_vie_est_belle). Founded by artist Eddy Ekete, the group brings together around 25 artists—many trained at the Kinshasa Academy of Fine Arts—who turn discarded materials into defiant symbols of resilience. Using plastic bottles, car parts, flip-flops, CDs, and broken electronics, they build sculptural costumes that echo traditional African masks—transforming waste into powerful statements about identity, survival, and inequality. “The costumes draw attention and tell the story of this craziness: where you have one of the richest countries on earth in natural resources, yet one of the poorest in terms of social and economic conditions,” says Gladieu. What was once trash has become protest, creativity, and art. ❤️ #art #africa #contemporaryart #recycledart #photography